Eldoret town bypass compensation more than doubles due to delayed payment

The government will be forced to pay Sh4.12 billion to compensate 1,095 property owners along the Eldoret town bypass road project.
Initially Sh2 billion was to be paid out as compensation but due to delays, the amount has more than doubled.
The County Development Implementation Co-ordination Committee has now expressed concern over the slow pace of the implementation of the mega project.
The committee noted that only 8% of the project has been done as at the 42% stage of the project timeline a trend that may end up costing the government huge sums of money to cover the cost of idle equipment since the contractor is not implementing the project as they would have wanted.
Uasin Gishu County Commissioner Abdi Hassan said that the cost of compensating the land owners would continue rising if land owners were not compensated as a matter of urgency.
The delay has been caused by numerous complaints by land owners whose property would be affected by the project.
Hassan observed that it may be difficult to carry out verifications if the need arises in future considering that some of the land owners have already cut down trees and even demolished their houses which were initially valued.
The committee blamed National Land Commission (NLC) for delaying to pay the land owners yet they already received Sh550 million from the government in August 2018 for the payments.
Eldoret bypass was launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta in August 2017 and is expected to be completed by August 2020.
The committee at the same time called for urgent investigations of individuals paid over fictitious claims that their businesses were affected by the project at Maili Tisa junction.
In a report tabled during the CDIIC meeting chaired by the Uasin Gishu County Commissioner at his office on Friday, seven people have already been paid for the fictitious claims and four others have been listed to be paid.
Turbo Deputy County Commissioner Mohammed Mwabudzo said the 11 individuals were not known by the traders at Maili Tisa and never appeared during a physical verification carried out by the sub county security committee to ascertain the true traders who deserved to be compensated for disruption of their businesses.
Sh30 million was set aside to compensate 74 traders who were to be affected by the project and so far, 39 have been paid.
By Kiptanui Cherono